MP Candice Bergen held a virtual meeting open to all constituents this past Wednesday. She says it went quite well and, although she wishes they could be doing things face to face by now, she notes this is the next best thing. Bergen says this was her first town hall meeting open to everyone.

"Since COVID hit, I've had a number of different opportunities where I've had meetings with constituents and community leaders of different groups," Bergen explains. "This was the first time I've held a riding-wide town hall meeting virtually. It was good and I plan to do more of them."

Bergen says it was great to see everyone's face and notes they were able to answer many questions but she thinks there are still plenty more that she can answer for the public in town hall meetings in the future. She says a lot of questions were related to COVID-19 and the vaccine but not all.

"There were definitely questions around jobs and the economy as we come out of COVID," says Bergen. "I had some specific questions around legislation like Bill C-7 which is the medical assisted in dying bill. I have concerns about it and I expressed those to constituents. I did get questions around gun legislation as well."

Bergen still covered COVID-19 quite a bit at the meeting, mainly surrounding the vaccine distribution. She says things have been going very slow so far from the federal level, noting places like the United Kingdom are already looking at opening things up fully once again.

"If we don't get vaccinated, we're going to be months and months behind other countries in terms of opening up," Bergen explains. "We're disappointed with their lack of planning and lack of preparation but we really hope they can catch up and we can get vaccines to the people who want them."

Bergen says she will be doing these town hall meetings more often to address these concerns of constituents.